The present invention relates to a new and distinct hosta plant, Hosta ‘Dancing with Dragons’ hereinafter also referred to as the new plant or by the cultivar name, ‘Dancing with Dragons’. Hosta ‘Dancing with Dragons’ was a cross by the inventor between two non-patented, unreleased, proprietary hybrids on Jul. 26, 2012 at a wholesale perennial nursery in Zeeland, Mich., USA. The female parent was identified as H10-132-1 and the male parent was identified as H10-366-1. The new plant was assigned the breeder code 12-132-4 and passed the initial evaluation in the summer of 2014. It has been asexually propagated by division at the same nursery since 2017 and also by careful shoot tip plant tissue culture with the resultant asexually propagated plants having retained all the same traits as the original plant. Hosta ‘Dancing with Dragons’ is stable and reproduces true to type in successive generations of asexual reproduction.
There are nearly 6,000 registered and unregistered hostas with The American Hosta Society, which is the International Cultivar Registration Authority for the genus Hosta, and a similar or larger number of unregistered cultivars. Several of these have blue-green leaf blades with ruffled margins. The most similar hosta cultivars known to the applicant are the female parent, H10-132-1; the male parent, H10-366-1; ‘Diamond Lake’ U.S. Plant Pat. No. 30,769; ‘Joy Ride’ (not patented); ‘Neptune’ U.S. Plant Pat. No. 19,674 and ‘Waterslide’ U.S. Plant Pat. No. 30,303. The female parent has is smaller in habit with smaller foliage. The male parent has broader foliage with more ruffles and forms a larger clump. Both parents have glaucous blue foliage. ‘Diamond Lake’ has much larger habit and broader foliage than the new plant, and also has more rugose leaf surface. ‘Joy Ride’ is larger in habit with a wider longer leaf blade and has less glaucous covering over the leaf blade. ‘Neptune’ is larger in habit and has leaves that are broader and longer. ‘Waterslide’ is smaller in habit, with less glaucous leaf blades, and the leaf blades are also more folded than the flatter leaves of the new plant. ‘Fulda’ (not patented) has a smaller habit, has a smaller, narrower leaf without the sinuate margin. ‘Medusa’ (not patented) has a smaller habit with narrower shiny leaves without glaucous surfaces that are variegated with a near white center and the flowers are deep purple.
Other Hosta cultivars may have medium-sized leaf blades with heavily glaucous leaves bases and stiff, thick leaf substance or other individual traits similar to ‘Dancing with Dragons’ but the new plant differs from the above listed cultivars and all other hostas known to the applicant, by the combination of the following traits.                1. Leaves are medium-sized, ovate, with narrowly acute apices and cordate base;        2. Arching leaves have a moderately wavy margin.        3. Strongly glaucous blue-green surfaces that hold all season.        4. Underside of leaf near-white with strongly glaucous covering.        5. Compact mounded habit and useful in the garden as edging or front border, in containers, as a specimen or en masse.        6. Flowers are white, broadly striped down the center of the tepals with light lavender and densely arranged in verticils and individually above foliage.        